In the first incident of its kind, 71 Dalit Meghwar families of theAaklee village, comprising 400 members, have left their ancestralvillage to protest against the alleged abduction of a 15-year-oldMeghwar girl Daya. According to the villagers, the teenager wasforcibly married to a Muslim influential.

This is the second incident of abduction of a girl from the minorityDalit community during the last two months. Earlier in January 2010,Kasturi, a young girl from the Kolhi community in Nagarparker, waskidnapped and gang-raped.

The Meghwar families have now set up their makeshift huts on theplains near Mithi Town and are demanding protection for their youngdaughters, who they believe are not secure after the kidnapping ofDaya. The protestors said that they not yet lodged an FIR against theaccused out of the fear of more kidnappings of their women. Daya waskidnapped on January 23 from her hut in the night. Soon after theincident, it was declared that she has converted to Islam at an oldMadrassa in Samaro town and married with one Mumtaz Hingorjo, son of alocal influential.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), SindhTaskforce, the alleged abductors, Mumtaz and his father TalibHingorjo, have threatened the community to stay quite on the issue orelse they would kidnap other girls from the community.

Former Member of the Sindh Assembly, Engineer Gianchand, who alsobelongs to the Meghwar community and is the general secretary ofScheduled Castes Federation of Pakistan, told The News that the peopleare in great trouble. "They are practically living on the ground.Nobody from the government has come forward, extending a helping handin this difficult time.

They are starving and they don't have any access to potable water,"Gianchand said. The ex-MPA's family has given a piece of land to theprotesting villagers to settle down.

The Meghwar community members are considered traditional supporters ofthe Pakistan People's Party (PPP). However, the community eldersmaintain that though they had conveyed the issue to the party leaders,all they received are empty assurances.

Ratna and Khaku, parents of Daya, believe that the accused had forcedtheir daughter to change her religion. "It is a forced conversion,"they claimed.

Pirbhu Satyani of Thardeep Rural Support Programme, a local NGO,rejected the claim of the Madrassa head and the abductors regardingthe girl's change her faith on her will. "The girl is only 15 yearsold, which means she is ineligible for marriage according to the lawof the land. Secondly, the girl should be produced before the courtwhere her statement should be recorded before the magistrate," headded.

Satyani said that Thardeep was providing the protestors with food andother necessities. He said the families need shelter immediately andthe cost to build a single hut ranges between Rs15, 000-17,000. Heregretted that the government was doing nothing for these familiesexcept distributing some 100 forms of the Benazir Income SupportProgramme (BISP).

Mehendro Meghwar, a local activist, said, "No one can imagine howdifficult it was for us to leave our ancestral village. We havedecided not to go back to our village."

When asked about their immediate needs, majority of the protestorssaid that they were worried about the education of their childrenbecause the exams had already started. Besides, they said, they hadlost their jobs. They also sought a piece of land from the government.

According to a statement issued by the HRCP's, Pir Ayoob Jan Sarhandi,who heads the Madarssa in Samaro, has claimed that they have converted40,000 non-Muslims to Islam so far. "Not a single case of forcedconversion has been proved against us. In this case, the girl showedher willingness," the HRCP statement quoted Sarhandi.

KalingaTimes CorrespondentKendrapara, March 6: Alleging that they are being discriminatedagainst and treated as second grade citizens both by the governmentagencies and upper-caste people, hundreds of dalits staged a noisyprotest rally in front of the district collectorate here today.

"Poor and innocent dalits are now at the receiving ends of atrocityand torture and the offenders are influential and powerful upper castepeople. The protectors of law are watching silently as poor lowerpeople suffer. The civil and police administration has done preciouslittle to undo the injustice done to them", the agitating dalits toldreporters.

"Of late a reign of terror has been unleashed upon the dalits. Eventhe women and children have become the victims of atrocity. Nothinghas been done to heal the wounded the psyche of dalits", charged AshokMallik, secretary, Republican youth front, which spearheaded theagitation.

Dalit women were victims of sexual assault in Rankala village lastmonth. Mob torched down the dalit dwellings in the said village. Apartfrom effecting couple of arrest in the arson incident, police haveclosed its eyes on the sexual assault case, he told.

Dalit women cooks have been beaten up and driven out of a school inRajnagar area purely on caste consideration. The victim women fearingretaliation have fled the village. In Mahadedia village under Rajnagartehsil, the dalits are being socially ostracized and are being treatedas untouchables by upper caste villagers.

For strange reason, the grievance petitions and FIRs lodged with theadministrative and police authorities have been ignored, Mallikalleged.

The district and police administration is maintaining partisan stand.The influential offenders, who are well connected politically, arebeing protected.

If this sort of caste bias continues, dalits would be forced to takelaw unto their hands, he warned.

The dalit leader also assailed a ruling party MLA and MP formaintaining stoic silence to the ongoing spell of dalit atrocity.Bound by political compulsion, these BJD leaders are yet to utter aword to assuage the morale of dalits, he concluded.

enying the allegations leveled by dalits, Kendrapara CollectorSisirkanta Panda however said administration and police have due noteof dalits' plight. Action against the perpetrators of atrocity hasbeen initiated as per law, he added.

Kendrapara: Alleging that they are being discriminated as second grade citizens by government agencies and upper-caste people, hundreds of dalits today rallied in front of Kendrapara district Collectorate here.

Alleging a reign of terror has been unleashed upon the dalits in certain areas of the district, Secretary, Republican Youth Front, Ashok Mallik said the offenders are influential and powerful upper caste people but the civil and police administration have done little.

Mallik further charged that Dalit women were subjected to sexual assault at Rankala village last month when a mob torched their dwellings and besides making some arrests in the case of arson, "police turned a blind eye to the sexual assault case."

However, the District Collector Sisirkanta Panda denied the charges and claimed proper action was initiated against the offenders as per law.

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Dalit activists argue that English not just opens up jobopportunities, but also helps ease the caste and power constraintsthat come with speaking regional languages

Pallavi Singh

New Delhi: I dream of an English full of the words of my language.anEnglish in small letters and English that shall tire a white man'stongue an English where small children practice with smooth roundpebbles in their mouth to spell the right zha.

When Meena Kandasamy wrote these lines, almost like a petition,pleading that her roots be allowed to flourish in English, she wasjust 18 and fresh from the unusual loss of her poetic name: Ilavenil.

Aspiring for change: Tamil poet Meena Kandasamy is one of a growingband of Dalit intellectuals who look at English as a key to progress.

The Tamil name meant "spring" but often became the subject of ridiculefor the young Dalit poet when many said it sounded like the name of atrain. "I winced in horror and wept on my pillows. Within my ownstate, this name was a clear giveaway of my Tamil origins: it wasdevoid of Hindu/Brahminic/Sanskrit roots. I wanted a name people couldaccept," she recalls.

She later adopted her nickname Meena to escape the predicament, and inresponse to any question posed to her in Tamil, she spoke in English."I want this new tongue to accept me. I expect it to appreciate mysensibilities, admire my culture and, above all, be accommodating,"she says.

Kandasamy is one of a growing band of Dalit intellectuals who arerooting for English, arguing what was once a language of imperialpower is now a language of emancipation.

Though a borrowed language, she says, English earned her recognition.Poems in Kandasamy's first book Touch, written in English andpublished in 2006, have been translated into five languages. "Itdoesn't operate with the Dalits alone. English takes your voice to alarger level and helps in your search for solidarity...(with)like-minded people, people who want change."

Kandasamy's engagement is part of an emerging struggle in the journeyof English in India: the Dalit aspiration for progress and a growingdemand for schools teaching the language.

In Coimbatore, the second largest city in Tamil Nadu, a massiveEnglish training project is under way. A seven-month-old programmedesigned by the British Council under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA),a flagship programme to put every child in school, is trainingteachers in government-funded schools to teach communicative Englishbetter. The real beneficiaries, says Alison Barrett, head of thecouncil's Project English for State Partnerships, are children frommarginalized sections who attend such schools.

"English is a way of accessing socio-economic advancement. English, inthis country, means a language of power, and if you don't give themEnglish, they cannot access power structures and effect changes insocio-economic policies," says Barrett.

In Tamil Nadu, where a strong Dravidian movement in the early decadesof the 20th century thwarted the Union government's plans to imposeHindi as the country's official language, the English Project hasbrought within its fold 125,000 primary school teachers and fivemillion children in a short span of seven months.

Thiru. S. Kannappan, SSA's joint director in Tamil Nadu, who isinvolved in planning, implementation and monitoring, says the projectcame at just the right time, when learning levels in the language instate-run schools were ebbing—only around 22% children in the schoolsin Tamil Nadu can read easy sentences, a recent report by educationactivist group Pratham says.

Dalit activists argue that English not just opens up jobopportunities, but also helps ease the caste and power constraintsthat come with speaking regional languages.

Far away from Tamil Nadu, in Uttar Pradesh, Dalit thinker and authorChandrabhan now calls for the worship of the English goddess—a symbolof Dalit emancipation.

"Not only is the English language spoken everywhere in the world,respected by the people of all the nations and easily learnt, but thepeople of the English nation are also impartial and unbiased—and towhichever nation they go, they do not indulge in the base acts ofcasteism or communalism," says Prasad, who declared 25 October asEnglish Day in a ceremony in New Delhi last year, coinciding with thebirthday of T.B. Macaulay, the British administrator who introducedEnglish education in the country.

"English can fill the gap," says Alka Gupta, founder of the BritishAcademy for English Language in New Delhi. "It is like Bisleriwater—you may go for anything to eat but you do need water. Whateverbe your personal qualification, you can't go far without English."

LUCKNOW: The political spectrum dominated by pro-Mandal forces in UP is likely to undergo a change, once a determined Congress succeeds in pushing the Women's Reservation bill, slated to be taken up for vote in Parliament on Women's Day on March 8.

The Congress move has already caused disquiet in the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP). Though arch-rivals, the two parties are major players in their own respects in UP. Together, they represent the voice and aspirations of the masses by making a formidable tally of 314 -- BSP (227) and the SP (87) in 403 members Vidhan Sabha.

Ironically, the opposition to the Women's bill by these two Mandal outfits runs contrary to the history of UP. This is because UP can boast of having the first woman governor (Sarojini Naidu), and the first woman chief minister (Sucheta Kriplani) in the country. They decorated these Constitutional offices way back in '50s and '60s respectively when women virtually had no voice in the society. Even BSP supremo Mayawati, herself a woman and a Scheduled Caste, has risen to become chief minister for the fourth time of this politically most sensitive state, which is often regarded as the heart of India and a key to power at Delhi.

However, both the BSP and the SP have their reasons to oppose the proposed bill. As OBC champion and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav puts it: "The bill in its present form is nothing but a conspiracy against the Dalits and the Other Backward Classes (OBC)." Incidentally, BSP supremo Mayawati, too, demands vertical reservation given separately to women belonging to SC/ST, OBC and minorities.

Both parties are gearing up to oppose the bill. As SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said: "We will oppose this bill both inside and outside the Parliament." Similarly, BSP sources confide that the Centre would be exposed for its stance over the issue at a large party rally to be attended by workers from all over the country here on March 15.

The fear of these parties are not unfounded. Paradoxically, their voters are socially conservative. Reasons for this may vary. While Dalits, who are mainly landless labourers, are socially-disadvantaged groups; Yadavs, Jats and OBCs have a strong patriarchal set-up. In the backdrop of this, leaders of both the BSP and SP are apprehensive over the bill and see it against their social value system. They feel the bill in its present form would force them to fill mandatory 33% women quota mainly from those of upper castes.

An analogy can be drawn in this respect from the women representation in the Vidhan Sabha. In 2002, 32 women were elected. The SP had the highest numbers (16), followed by eight of BJP, six of BSP and two of Congress and one of RLD. Of 16 SP women members, 10 were from upper castes. In BSP their number was four out of total six. However, in 2007 Vidhan Sabha elections the number of women MLAs went down. They are in the order of: BSP (14), SP (6) BJP (5), Congress (1) and RLD (2). Incidentally, majority of women MLAs, both in BSP and the SP, are from upper castes.

In UP, the first Legislative Assembly had 13 women, this increased to 29 in 1957 and 30 in 1985. Their numbers reached a low of 10 in 1991, but rose to 14 in 1993. The assembly elections of 1996 saw only 19 women in the state legislature. The only silver lining is that of the panchayats polls in which women representatives are much more than their quota of 33%. But as these elections are influenced mainly by the government of the day, they are only a superficial parameter for women empowerment.

Systematically, anti-women biases and obstacles to women's entry have made our polity an almost exclusive all-male club. In popular perception, politics has become synonymous with greed, lust for power and criminality. Ironically, Mayawati, too, has failed to distinguish herself as advocate of women empowerment.

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Sat, Mar 6 11:59 PM Patna, March 6 (IANS) The poorest of the poor dalits and exploited sections of society have extremely low awareness about legal rights and judicial remedies which is impeding welfare and human rights objectives, a rights activist said Saturday.

'Unless Dalits and marginalised sections of society are aware of their legal rights and are also aware of the ways and means to enforce them, they will not be able to enjoy rights and privileges accorded to them under Indian laws,' Sarita Bhoi of the Dalit Rights Initiative of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) said after the conclusion of a two day workshop on 'Dalit Rights and the Law'.

The workshop was attended by 25 NGOs and 200 civil society representatives from across the country.

'There is large scale ignorance about legal rights, together with ignorance and fear of the judicial options and procedures among dalits and exploited communities. The state of dalit affairs in Bihar leaves much to be desired,' she said.

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STAFF WRITER 16:49 HRS IST Patna, Mar 7 (PTI) Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) will oppose the Women's Reservation Bill "tooth and nail and are even prepared to be marshalled out," its president Lalu Prasad said today.

Dubbing the bill as a "political blunder", Prasad alleged that it was a conspiracy hatched by both BJP and Congress parties to suppress representation of women belonging to the OBC, ST/SC and Muslim communities.

The Centre does not have guts to implement the Ranganath Mishra Commission and Sachar panel reports, and hence passing of the Women's Reservation Bill was merely a "diversionary tactic", he told reporters here before leaving for New Delhi to garner support against the bill in its present form.

"I am for 50 per cent reservation for women belonging to all communities... But you cannot ignore the the interests of women from deprived sections of the society.

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"SP is not against reservation to women, but we are against the present format of the bill, which is a big conspiracy by the Congress and the BJP to prevent Muslims, backwards and dalits to get elected to the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas," Yadav, whose party has steadfastly opposed the bill, told reporters here.

Attacking the two parties, he said, "It's not an allegation, it's the reality as Congress and BJP had always been anti-Muslim, anti-backwards and anti-dalit. Therefore, they want to amend the Constitution.

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KALPETTA: K. Venu, social critic, has said that the land reforms Actin Kerala did not help the marginalised sections of society, includingthe tribal people and the Dalits.

Inaugurating a seminar on "Tribal people, their land and politics"here on Saturday, Mr. Venu said that though the Act was able toeradicate feudalism to an extent and liberate many tenants fromtenancy, the tribal people and the Dalits continued to face neglect inbeing granted land. The reason for this was that many of them were nottenants and hence did not come under the purview of the Act.

Mr. Venu said the successive governments did not take follow-up actionafter the implementation of the Act. They could have helped thesemarginalised people by finding surplus land and giving it to them, butnobody cared about the basic issues of the tribal people and theDalits. The civil society and the governments became conscious of therights of the tribal people only after the Muthanga agitation.

He alleged that the political parties did not make any positiveattempts to solve the basic issues of the marginalised sections.Finding surplus land possessed by private people in a time-boundmanner and distributing it among the tribal people were the onlypossible ways to solve the issue. He said the basic problems of thetribal people should be solved legally and the political partiesshould have a policy to solve the problems of such marginalisedpeople.

'Untimely'

C.K. Janu, chairman, Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha, said the landagitations launched under the aegis of the Communist Party ofIndia-Marxist (CPI-M) was untimely. Using the government machinery,the party should find surplus land in the district and distribute itto the tribal people. P.V. Rajagopal, National Land Reforms Committeemember and chairman, Ekatha Parishad, said the aspirations of themiddle class were wrongly considered the aspirations of India.Cultural imperialism should not be imposed upon the tribal people. Anew cultural paradigm should be developed and the middle class shouldpress for the basic needs of the tribal people, he added.

C.K. Saseendran, CPI(M) district secretary, and M. Geethanandan,leader, Rashtriya Mahasabha, spoke. The seminar was organised by theVartha Trust, a collective of journalists in the district.

Varadaiahpalem March 4: About 100 villagers from the Dalitwada of Mambakam village of Varadaiahpalem mandal in the district on Thursday encroached the sprawling 40 acre of the Kalki Bhagawan Ashram and earmarked their individual borders. According to information reaching here, villagers reached the ashram surrounded by the reserve forest early in the morning. Carrying farm equipment like crowbars, sickles and pickaxes, they started clearing bushes and made individual boundaries, writing their names on the rocks. Police at Satyavedu and Varadaiahpalem station received information around 10.30 am, but there was no action from them. Similarly, the management of Kalki Bhagawan Ashram, located 12 km from the encroached land, also did not respond. Villages claimed that the lands originally belonged to them and the ashram personnel had taken these over, making false promises. They remained there till dusk and later left for their hamlet. Meanwhile, about 30 parents of Kalki Dasas in the ashram addressed the media on Thursday noon. They rejected the news in the print and electronic media about drug and other anti-social activities in the ashram. They claimed that their children who were rendering service as servants (dasas) to the Bhagawan were safe in his custody.

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NEW DELHI: The government has decided not to include caste as one of the parameters in the 2011 census, a demand made by several regional parties.

"Caste will not be included in the 2011 census," Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai said.

Parties like PMK, RJD, JD(U) and a few others had demanded in the past inclusion of caste in the decennial census, especially the survey focusing on Other Backward Castes to buttress their demand for OBC reservation.

Besides, West Bengal's Left Front government is the lone state government to have made a representation to the Central government asking for a caste-based census.

Groups like OBC Employees' Welfare Association, Tamil Nadu, Most Backward Class Officers and Employees' Association, Patna, National Social Justice Forum (Haryana unit) and All India Other Backward Classes Employees in Indian Ordnance and Ordnance Equipment Factories Welfare Association, Tiruchirappalli had requested the Home Ministry for including caste as one of the parameters in 2011.

The office of the Registrar General of India that oversees the census exercise, comes under the Home Ministry.

Data on demographic and socio-economic parameters like age, sex, SC/ST status, literacy, religion, mother tongues/ languages known, economic activity status and migration are among the 15 parameters that would be collected as part of the 2011 Census.

Home Ministry officials said there are "practical and logistical difficulties" in including caste in the Census exercise.

"The idea of caste is not uniform across the country.

Besides, how would an enumerator cross-check the claims of someone belonging to a particular caste," an official said.

The last caste-based Census was held in 1931, but there have been sporadic calls for one after the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report.

The PMK even had approached the Supreme Court last year with its demand. The apex court, however, turned down the plea saying it "could cause immense strife" and that "this is why it had not been done for the last 60 years".

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Before cutouts and 'cooling' glasses captured the Dravidian movementand the imagination of the Tamil public, there was Anna.

Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai or Anna (elder brother in Tamil) toadmirers and followers, is a seminal figure in Indian politics. He wasa mass leader who spoke of social justice and linguistic nationalism.He saw the potential of the mass media, especially theatre and cinema,to spread the political message and mobilize people. His workradically transformed power equations in Tamil Nadu. R Kannan'sbiography is a sensitive portrayal of the man and the movement he led.

Anna belonged to a political tradition that gave precedence to socialreform over political freedom. The Dravidian movement suspected Indiannationalism as represented by Congress of wanting to emasculateregional, ethnic and linguistic communities. It interpreted pan-Indiannationalism as an Aryan project to subdue Dravidians. In many ways,the Dravidian movement anticipated the national struggles that emergedin independent India, especially in the northeastern region.

Kannan begins his story by analyzing the political trends thatprepared the ground for Anna's career. The early decades of the 20thcentury were a time of political and social upheaval in south India.Madras was the political centre of south India. Brahmins dominated thebureaucracy, just as they did other spheres.

It was natural for the struggle for representation to acquire ananti-Brahmin thrust. A non-Brahmin manifesto issued in 1916 said casteand class distinctions would have to disappear before self-governmentcould become more satisfactory. When the Justice Party, the mainvehicle of non-Brahmin politics, gained office in Madras Presidency in1920, it issued the communal government order that demanded morenon-Brahmin representation in all government departments. Later, itgave priority to non-Brahmins and backward communities in recruitmentand promotion. This was six decades before New Delhi accepted theMandal Commission recommendations.

It is impossible to separate Anna's story from the history of theDravidian movement and the life of Periyar EV Ramasamy Naicker.Periyar began his political career as a Congressman but joined theJustice Party after he was convinced that social reform must precedepolitical reform. He transformed the Justice Party into a massorganization. Anna, born into a family of weavers, became his trustedally. According to Kannan, there could not have been two moredifferent men. "EVR spoke the bitter truth without mincing words andwas extreme in his views....Unlike his iconoclast leader, Anna, thegenteel disciple, chastised Aryanism, caste, ritualistic religion,unethical pontiffs, feudal landlords and the heartless rich in a muchmore acceptable manner and consequently doors hitherto shut to themovement opened to him," he writes.

Together, the mentor and his disciple spearheaded the anti-Hindiprotests of the 1930s. This phase of mass mobilization saw the adventof Tamil linguistic nationalism, which was a combination of the socialreform agenda and pride in the Tamil language and culture. Soon, itbecame a cry for a separate Dravida nation. But what was that?According to Kannan, territorially unworkable and ethnicallyamorphous, the project was no more than a medley of ad hoc theses andarguments.

Periyar and Anna split ranks on the question of state power. UnlikePeriyar, Anna thought electoral politics necessary. They parted withbitterness. Kannan betrays a nuanced understanding of the complexrelations between Periyar and Anna. His narration is sensitive.

The DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), formed in 1949, refused to acceptthe Indian nation state's primacy but aspired to public office. Itheld to the demand for self-determination till 1962. Anna'sexplanation for abandoning this demand was simple: "We need to get our(Dravida Nadu) from Pandit Nehru. Not from the Chinese." Attempts tomake Hindi the sole official language in the 1960s provoked languageriots in Madras. Emotions ran high as DMK leaders used the issue tomobilize people and self-immolation began. Kannan writes that Annadidn't approve of the suicides and said, "they should fight injusticeby living; to die is wrong. There should be no such thoughts." Themobilization helped the DMK win office in Madras in 1967.

Anna was chief minister only for two years. He died in 1969 at the ageof 60. By then, he had skillfully convinced a party founded on aseparatist platform to embrace the idea of a federal India. Thefailure to invent a radical agenda after it exhausted the limitedgoals of political representation prevented the party from lookingbeyond identity issues. Excessive dependence on an emotional agendacrippled the party's ability to foster a democratic public culture.That, in the end, led the movement itself to decay.